The Black Hack Second Edition

New expanded Second Edition rules now include a wealth of extra material and tools for every Black Hack GM. The main rules still only take up 30 pages, but the full edition adds over 90 more pages of NPCs, monsters, dungeons, traps, magic items and much more.

The Black Hack is a super-streamlined roleplaying game that uses the Original 1970s Fantasy Roleplaying Game as a base, and could well be the most straightforward modern OSR compatible clone available. If speed of play and character creation, compatibility, and simple - yet elegant rules are what you yearn for. Look no further!

The Black Hack is a fast playing game and the rules can be picked up in minutes.

Print copies of The Black Hack Second Edition including a boxed set are now available and may be ordered from the Squarehex website.

Well I gave up, just went back to playing AD&D 2E, no pod no sale (your loss not mine).

Peter SMay 21, 2020 11:12 pm UTC

You can find the print edition on the squarehex website, but sadly it isn't available here.

Scott MJanuary 14, 2020 12:24 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Why are some sections omitted from the table of contents (and bookmarks)? For example, "Overland Adventures".

Giovanni CJanuary 09, 2020 1:56 pm UTC

PURCHASER

I'm playing a campaign of this and we're having issues understanding how magic works.

In the manual, you say that when time is tracked using minutes, a spellcaster can spend an action to cast from a book or a scroll and making a test. If he fails the test, he suffers a random consequence. My cleric interpreted this rule as "outside of combat, I can cast a spell from by prayerbook as many times as I want", and since all the consequences in that table aren't mechanically bad (they are just kinda wacky), he just keeps spamming cure light wounds outside of combat and ignore the consequences because all they do is change his appearance. As a gamemaster, I just realized that I cannot damage my players outside of combat because they will always be instatly healed.

Peter RJanuary 10, 2020 9:27 am UTC

PUBLISHER

In that instance I'd probably house rule that if reading a spell to cast it then it's only possible once per spell / per session. And/or you could say that only spells that aren't memorised can be read as reading a memorised spell wipes it from the caster's memory.

Giovanni CJanuary 10, 2020 11:03 am UTC

PURCHASER

Thank you for the reply and house rule suggestion. Does this mean that my cleric's interpretation of the ruleset is correct?

Scott NJanuary 07, 2020 11:17 pm UTC

found it on squarehex, holy COW! $70.00 to $USA for the box set. You really need a US distributor like Amazon.

Peter RJanuary 10, 2020 9:16 am UTC

PUBLISHER

In the US you can get Black Hack material from Exalted Funeral, Noble Knight and Games Unlimited.

Travis PFebruary 26, 2020 4:18 am UTC

Sold out, all. They seem to sell out quite quickly when they get stock. I understand that's probably better than having overstock though.

Jesse RFebruary 26, 2020 11:31 pm UTC

Yeah. I keep looking at all of those (and eBay) but no luck :(

Scott NJanuary 07, 2020 11:10 pm UTC

why no pod?!

Peter RJanuary 10, 2020 9:18 am UTC

PUBLISHER

We printed a nice stitched hardback and loads of extra items. PoD is great but it's pretty limited.

Sam CDecember 22, 2019 2:22 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Confused about how shields and helms work on characters with lighter or heavier armour. If they just get +1 to the AV doesnt that mean a helm on someone wearing plate is more likely to break than one on someone wearing cloth?

And if a character has no armor but holds a shield, is the shield always fixed on a rest? (Rolling above a 0 on 1D6)

And why an encounter roll after everyone has a turn? We had three 6s in a row and the characters were basically needing a meal after every room. I know that basically a GM’s job is to tweak things they don’t like, but I’m wondering if I’m doing it wrong or not getting the intention behind some of these rules.

Giovanni CJanuary 09, 2020 2:11 pm UTC

PURCHASER

No, they add one armor die. Your armor value remains the same.

July 04, 2019 6:32 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Just picked this up, loving what I'm seeing and ideas are already flowing for games.

Quick question, that I couldn't find the answer to. The book mentions Dungeon Level a few times, but never calls out what it is, or tips on generation. My guess is that the Dungeon Level is treated just like HD? Is there any relationship between the HD of monsters and the dungeon level? Or is the dungeon level just for calculating random monsters and trap HD?

Peter FJune 21, 2019 6:01 pm UTC

PURCHASER

saw the questing beast review view and thought this product looked awesome, so I'm just going to give you my money now.

I will say drivethrurpg needs to sort its search function out; I searched for this product and got everything that wasn't this product. I went to google and searched for it and the drivethrurpg page was the first return ffs.

Jordan DOctober 11, 2019 10:55 am UTC

PURCHASER

word! same here!

Tony CMay 08, 2019 10:10 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Hey, just wondering if you've considered offering the 'nipple-less wizard' edition I'd asked about awhile back. It seems like others would like that too. It's not clear that the character isn't wearing a top so really just erasing the nipples is all that's required.

Again, sorry to ask, it's ridiculous, I know, but there are a lot of places (workplace, schools...as described) where--but for those two pesky nips--your product could be used.

Love the system...for anyone considering buying the game, it is well worth it!

Jeff AFebruary 08, 2020 5:28 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Travis PFebruary 26, 2020 4:19 am UTC

Use a sharpie to give her a bra or put a sticker over them?

Brian BMay 03, 2019 11:24 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Hi everyone! I created this character sheet app that you can use to make your Black Hack 2E characters and manage them.

https://tbhbeyond.com/

Tony CMay 08, 2019 10:32 pm UTC

PURCHASER

This is fantastic! I thought about building one too, but now I don't have to. Thanks very much.

Thomas BMay 16, 2019 12:42 pm UTC

PURCHASER

This is awesome! Might be too much to ask, but would it be possible to import homebrewed classes/spells?

Matt MApril 27, 2019 5:12 am UTC

PURCHASER

I want to make sure I'm reading the rules correctly. Since players make attribute tests to attack and defend, does that mean that each monster/NPC is just as easy/difficult to hit (and to avoid being hit by) as any other? Are the hit points and damage dice the only mitigating factor here? It just seems odd that a dragoneffectively has the same armor class as a goblin.

Greg WApril 28, 2019 1:14 am UTC

PURCHASER

Hi Matt, If you check out p. 31 there is a very important rule called "Powerful Foe". Basically, if the monster/NPC's HD (that is, their level) is higher than the PCs, then you *add* the difference to the PC's roll when making attribute tests, attacking, defending, etc. So if the PC is first level (HD 1) and the dragon is level 8 (HD 8), then the PC would add +7 to his attempt to roll under the relevant stat. Makes quite a difference! So yes, monster level compared to PC level really matters.

Matt MApril 28, 2019 1:16 am UTC

PURCHASER

Ah! Thanks!

Adam MMay 07, 2019 3:33 pm UTC

Additionally, monsters may have special abilities that further differentiate monsters of the same HD, like Slippery, Stubborn, or Armored. While most special abilities in the sample monsters are more offensive or utility than defensive, see the Hobgoblin Bully, Harlequin Assassin, Giant Elementalist, Giant Chieftain, etc. for other ways different monsters may be harder/easier to harm.

Christopher DOctober 02, 2019 11:56 am UTC

How do monsters defend against spells? The book mentions that characters can use attributes to defend against some magic, but what about monsters? The attribute test for memorized spells looks like it is made after spell effects are resolved. Does a cloud kill automatically work against that wyrm dragon?

Brandon WMarch 09, 2019 7:31 am UTC

PURCHASER

Hey this is real rad! Just want to chime in with some other folks in the discussion and say that a PG version without the topless wizard would be great. I mostly play games with co-workers at the office and a no-nipple version would short circuit some awkward conversations!

Sebastián PFebruary 26, 2019 5:19 pm UTC

PURCHASER

How do I print the GM screen to make it look pretty?

David TSeptember 26, 2019 5:20 am UTC

PURCHASER

Long story short— I cut a piece of poster board to Legal Size (14 inches X 8.5 inches) and printed the GM screen double-sided. After laminating, I scored the fold lines with something equivalent to a bone folder and folded. It's approximately 6 3/4 X 13 3/4 inches, which works just fine for me.
But I'm sure you've already printed it by now.

Patricio GFebruary 17, 2019 9:15 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Just bought the game in pdf. The Prayer and spellbook format is meant for printing or for reading in cellphones?

Charles BFebruary 09, 2019 9:36 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Are there separate character sheets available?

Thomas BFebruary 15, 2019 8:30 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Also curious about this. It's not a huge deal but it can be a small annoyance printing the specific pages from the main PDF w/ the associated spellsheets.

Andrew AMarch 23, 2019 11:47 am UTC

You should be able to "print" those pages one at a time, but instead of going to a printer, you just save them as a PDF. I know Windows has the option, can't remember if Mac has a save to PDF option. It may also depend on your PDF viewing program, but this way you'll have 4 separate character sheet PDFs

Thomas BMay 16, 2019 12:39 pm UTC

PURCHASER

dang! it seems so obvious now. Thanks!

steve BJanuary 13, 2019 4:05 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Hi, I'd like to split the PDF into Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide but it says I need to enter a password to edit the PDF. What would this be?

Andrew AMarch 23, 2019 11:50 am UTC

As I said in an above comment, you should be able to save as a PDF when printing, so just "print" the pages you want to make available to players as a new document. Going thru the whole book though, I feel like many things in the GM- only part really should be visible to players, as a fair bit of it seems like basic game mechanics, but to each their own

Fun very simple RPG. The core of the rules are about 30 pages with a bunch of fun tables taking up the bulk of the book such as random dungeons, NPCs and a bestiary of monster stats. I used it with a group whose primarily only played D&D 5e. [...]

I've said this a hundred times on Reddit, but TBH went from a really neat RPG (1E) to my favorite OSR ever published in 2E. I don't know if you've got more in store for the future or not, but I hope there will be more to come. [...]

The organization, layout and visual presentation are perfect. A lot of the rules are great and innovative. But I have one problem: 2nd edition tries to "fix" the armor rules from the 1st edition, and it makes things worse. Now, your armor [...]

Probably the current pinnacle of OSR design. Take a look at the preview. It gives a pretty good idea of how concise it is; the example of play illustrates the basic mechanics of the game within a very short space. It sold me on the game in a min [...]

The Black Hack's original iteration started a new sect of the OSR/DIY D&D movement and became one of the most hacked games since D&D. However, the original TBH made a lot of compromises to speed up play. Some of the rules were weird and [...]

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